BlogAid Happenings

A couple of weeks ago I submitted my test video to Udemy and it didn’t meet their HD standards. So, I had to update my post production software. That had a bit of a learning curve, but also had a playtime curve, seeing what all it could do. You’ll see those efforts in all the new titles and effects on that video.

But, the biggest time suck has been all the trial and error for doing on camera lectures. I’ve got that pretty much worked out now. I’m still adjusting the lighting issues. Fortunately I already had nice lights from taking pictures of my carvings.

And I’m using my c920 camera that I got for doing HOAs, and the little headset I use for those. Doesn’t sound as good as I would like and definitely not as good as the nice AT2100 mic I use for this podcast and the screencasts. I have a new lavalier mic on order, so I’ll have another round of trial and error with it.

I expect to put in another 10-15 hours with all of that.

Learning the Business of Udemy

Many years ago I was in the music business. I was a published composer for many years prior to that. And take note of the difference in what I just said.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Creating music and being in the business of music are two different things.” quote=”Creating music and being in the business of music are two different things.”]

It’s the same with books.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Publishers don’t give a flip if you can write a book, they care if you can sell one.” quote=”Publishers don’t give a flip if you can write a book, they care if you can sell one.”]

And now I’m learning the business of Udemy. I already know how to create video courses. Now I’m learning how to sell them the Udemy way and launch like a rocket when I publish on that platform. And there’s a lot to learn.

I’m taking my own advice, and the advice I give all of my training clients. Education up front really pays off and helps avoid expensive pitfalls.

I’m very grateful to the nice folks in the Online Video Educators and Entrepreneurs G+ Community for all of their help and support in this venture. I’m very inspired by what others in that Community are doing on Udemy as well.

No matter what type of product or service you sell, check out their past HOAs. They are a course in marketing too. That’s what all of this really boils down to, you know.

Social Media Challenge

Right now I’m also in +Denise Wakeman’s 30 Day Social Media challenge and this one is going to kick my butt. My profiles on those platforms need a lot of help and I need a system to start working to get higher visibility and more engagement on social media. I’m hoping to just keep up with this one.

We’re focused mainly on Facebookand Twitter, so if you follow me there, you’ll be seeing the changes as I learn.

[clickToTweet tweet=”The whole point of what you do online is about getting more eyeballs on your stuff.” quote=”The whole point of what you do online is about getting more eyeballs on your stuff.”]

What’s Your Strategy?

What efforts are you making to get higher visibility?

I hope you’ll leave a comment and share what’s working for you and/or what you’re working on to improve your results. And maybe share what it took to achieve the results you’re getting.

Many of you are solopreneurs like me. And wearing all these hats is a lot to do every day. I’m hitting on a lot of fronts right now, and that’s what it takes to keep up. I don’t have kids and a family to caretake, though. So, that’s part of why I can go so fast.

How do you balance it all? Let us know what your challenges are in creating a successful site and drawing more attention to it.

And if you haven’t done so yet, and maybe even if you have, I hope you’ll check out last week’s Tips Tuesday about the mindset to make money with your site. I used my own site and journey for specific examples of how to translate your business mission into action on your site, and why the order of those priorities has to be reversed.

That’s all the news from around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips from around the ‘net.

WordPress Tips

The release hit last week. If you have auto updates turned on, which I hope you do, this was taken care of for you.

It’s to patch a XSS (Cross Site Scripting) security hole for Users that have the role of Author or Contributor. If you only have Admin level Users on your site, then the security issue was not in play for you anyway.

But, there were 20 other bug fixes rolled in, just for good measure too.

We’re expecting the next major release sometime in August. I’ll have a video tour of all the new features for you when that happens.

Theme Tips

If you’re a designer, you most definitely need to read this post by Brian Krogsgard on Post Status. You can skim past the drama points and dig into the section about copyright of your the themes you create and your ability to make money with them.

You may find it as eye-opening as I did about the actions that Matt Mullenweg has taken in the last few years. He’s the owner of Automattic, which is the entity that owns WordPress and has the last say in its direction.

Membership Site Tips

I’m delighted to see this! The nice folks over at Happy Plugins have created a way for WLM to drip content. This is the one thing that WLM doesn’t do well natively and my main reason for wanting to use MemberPress because that is its core feature.

But this plugin is good for more than that. It can also hide archives. That’s spectacular if you run a membership based on ever changing content, like how to use social media platforms. You can create a level for access to archived content now, and charge an extra fee if current members want to see them.

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Stripe vs PayPal

I’m in the process of setting up a new member site for a client and this time we’re giving Stripe a try, instead of using PayPal because this will be a subscription based service. Stripe just does that better.

Stripe is sweet. I like it so much that I’m going to change over my flat fee member sites to it. The way it’s done completely eliminates the main caveat with WishList Member, which is the registration process after payment.

It keeps folks right there on your site. But that has its own caveat.

To use it, that page needs to be SSL, or https, to put it in layman’s terms. And you need to get a certificate that is serious about protecting and encrypting the client’s info. Don’t use a junk certificate for this, like the shared free ones offered by most hosts.

And no, I still won’t be making the whole site https. You can read my poston why I’m not jumping on that Google SEO bandwagon. I may when some things about it improve, but not yet.

There are other reasons for me wanting to move away from PayPal, and I’ll likely be writing up a whole post on it after I finish this member site and see how everything works with Stripe.

You’ll want to read the whole post for yourself and see what you make of it. But what I’ve said all along is that Google very much still wants to know who writes what online, and that authorship connections are still worth doing. If you need help with that, I have a whole SEO Video Course to ensure you get all the connections made, and that they can be picked up on your site properly too.

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Google Analyticator Plugin and SumoMe

I noticed that the Google Analyticator plugin is now constantly advertising for SumoMe within the WordPress admin pages.

And I’m getting tired of see that banner every time I log into my site. I was going to switch to the Google Analytics by Yoast plugin anyway, and this gives me just one more reason to do so.

I’ve been seeing more and more free plugin devs including notices and banners. But at least they are kind enough to put a Dismiss link in them. There is no such thing in the Google Analyticator SumoMe banner.

And I’m hoping that the notices go away if I do send in a donation on the others. It’s a good thing to support the devs that make so much of our world go around. Support and upkeep are not easy tasks, so do consider even a $5 donation. It really encourages them.

+Rand Fishkin has an excellent post on blocking bot crawlers on your site at the upper site level all the way down to the individual page level.

That’s an important distinction because many bots, including search engines such as Google and Bing, can and do ignore the site wide directives in places like robots.txt. Ill-behaved bots always ignore those.

So, knowing why and how to block at the page level is good info.

It’s pretty easy to do with the Yoast SEO plugin. Just keep in mind that no matter what you do, some bots are still going to crawl the page, they just may not index it. And Rand does a good job of explaining that difference too in this Whiteboard Friday, and why you want it to be that way.

Video Tips

It’s about damn time. Google is finally splitting account login from its products so that you’re not required to have a G+ account attached to everything you use from them.

I can’t even imagine why it wasn’t set up this way in the first place. Yeah, I know their whole “one login for everything” rule sounded like a good idea, but that’s not how online service companies build products. My login, and what it’s attached to should be my choice.

All the headache this has caused folks with multiple Gmail accounts is enormous. And Google didn’t exactly make it easy to change things either. Hopefully this will.

You can get all the skinny from +Ronnie Bincer who has been so good for so long to keep us up-to-the-minute with Google changes, especially those that affect YouTube. He’s definitely one of the most helpful folks I know on G+ and I highly recommend you follow him, especially if you want to know more about Hangouts. He’s THE dude on them.

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Jumping on the Video Bandwagon

Have you made any videos yet? The more I dive into making the most of social media, the more ways I’m finding to use videos. Every platform is getting in on it. So, that should tell you just how popular they are.

What I’ve discovered is that real money rides on when something is trending. Right now that’s video.

For years I ran a “me too” kind of business that followed the trend setters and just tried to keep up. Now that I’ve been able to get in on trends as they are happening, I can tell you that it’s way better. I may not be the first person to jump on the boat, but I don’t wait until it starts to fade to get on either.

What trends are you chasing? Or, have you ever tried that? Leave a comment and let us know what’s working for you and what you’re just having fun with!

About MaAnna Stephenson

MaAnna is a geek who can still speak in plain English and helps non-geeks create sites that get noticed by search engines and readers, are secure, plus convert, and perform well.Connect with MaAnna online

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Hi! I'm MaAnna, and I'm a geek who can still speak in plain English. I help non-geeks become confident, successful owners of sites that are secure, perform well, and get noticed by search engines and readers. How May I Help You?